First Day!

Sooooo today was the first day in Japan/the day of my trip. Yeah. It got a little crazy with the whole crossing-the-international-date-line thing. But anyway. I'll start off with the flight. Japan Airlines is kinda awesome. Their food was INCREDIBLE - I had specified a no-meat meal which allowed for seafood/fish, so I was expecting just some vegetables in the dish, but for lunch they gave me some really good cooked fish as well as some salmon sashimi that was really really yummy. Dinner/whatever meal it was at that time was shrimp ravioli with blueberry yogurt, which was also delicious. But yeah, the service was also really good - I ended up sleeping through lunch, but the flight attendant brought me my meal after I woke up without me having to ask her. Plus, they served green tea all the time!!! I love green tea! Plus, the entertainment was pretty good - I watched the second Pink Panther movie and that Clint Eastwood movie where he saves his neighbor from a gang.. I think it's called Gran Torino? Oh well. I slept for most of the 14 hour flight (no stops), so it was pretty manageable. Plus, I think I avoided jetlag entirely, which is a plus. So yeah, all in all the flight was a good experience.
On to the airport. Holy cow. The airport was so crazy busy and confusing and EVERYTHING was written in kanji that I totally couldn't read. There are two main terminals, 1 and 2, where international flights can get it - my plane got in at terminal 2. The HIF counter was at terminal 1, however - I spent about 15 minutes searching around terminal 2 for the counter (trying and failing miserably to ask for help.. I think I got out "HIF カウンターはどこですか?") Finally, one businessman who I guess understood my really bad Japanese told me I was in terminal 2, and that I needed to take a bus to terminal 1 to find the counter. Disastrous. But yeah, after that I found the HIF counter (and met Thanh there! Yay!) and got to meet a few of the other HIF-ers. One kid's a basketball fan, so we talked about the Lakers' imminent victory in the playoffs, which was fun. Then we took a bus to the Hotel Pacific Tokyo - on the ride, I remembered I had a camera, so I took a bunch of creepy pictures of people. One guy had this huge pink box on the back of his motorcycle, which I found hilarious. Then, of course, I had to take a picture of a woman in a kimono. Yeeah. It got really creeper-esque.
Anyway. On to the hotel. This place is awesome. The rooms are pretty comfortable, and my roommate is really nice. Granted, the third person has yet to show up. But still. They gave us cotton ゆかた! I'm totally planning on stealing it to weat around. But yeah. My roommate and I talked for a little bit about our hobbies and interests before meeting some of the other kids for a dinner/exploration session. We found a pretty cheap noodle shop kinda close to the hotel, so we decided to eat there. However, we ran into some problems because I don't eat meat - trying to convey this to a Japanese waitress is not the easiest thing for a group of first year students. Luckily, Elliot was there and helped me out. Plus, another businessman was eating next to us and helped let the waitress know what we were saying. Afterwards, we walked around exploring Tokyo for a bit. There were some crazy souveneirs, which I'm really tempted to buy, but can't really afford. We went to this place called the Aquastadium, which was pretty cool - they had covered the walls of the outdoor walkway with animal pictures, made of LED lights. It was really cool to walk through. Plus, some of the stuff you see here is really insane.
So, first thoughts about Tokyo - I really like how it's got a good blend of urban and rural. Like, as we were riding on the bus to the hotel, we passed through both industrial parks and rice fields. Plus, there are a lot more trees here, which I'm digging. I think it's really nice to see a city built into the environment like this. On the negative side, there is a LOT more smoking than I had expected. In most public places, people can be seen smoking. Also, it was really humid today =(
Annd thoughts about Japan now. Ohhh boy. I'm just now starting to fully understand the limitations of my communicative ability. It's somewhat intimidating to be in a country and being unable to convey your thoughts to the people around you. Even something as basic as "I don't eat meat" took a solid 2 minutes to say. It was a first day, and definitely eye-opening. I sure hope that it gets better through the summer. Being unable to read street signs, building names, etc. is not a fun place to be.